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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 2016)
august4 2016 VERNONIA’S volume10 issue15 www.vernoniasvoice.com reflecting the spirit of our community Where Are They Now? Katy Stevens After graduating from college, former Vernonia High School student Katy Stevens is now working to help those less fortunate. then sections of the walls started cracking open and water started pouring in.” Everyone, two adults, five children and two dogs, spent the night upstairs in the master bed- By Scott Laird In 2007, following the flood that devastated the Verno- nia community, Kathryn “Katy” Stevens, a freshman at Vernonia High School (VHS), found herself without a home or any possessions and dependent on the kindness of friends to help her get by. Ten years later, after an amazing journey, she is a college graduate and the Executive Direc- tor of a recently launched foun- dation she established to help the houseless get an education, which she named in honor of the family that took her in when she was at her lowest. On December 3, 2007, Stevens, then 14 years old, was living with her single father Scott and younger sister Savannah in a house at the base of the green bridge on Highway 47 on the north side of Vernonia. “Pretty early in the morning my dad came into our room and said, ‘Get your stuff off the ground, it’s going to flood.” said Stevens in a recent interview. “I remember going through our things, but we really didn’t believe anything was going to happen. And then water started coming over the edge of the river bank.” Katy and Savannah went to a friend’s house who thought they were on high enough ground. “Within an hour their house was flooding,” says Stevens. “I re- member seeing water coming through the electric sockets, and inside Katy Stevens is a 2010 graduate of Vernonia High School. room with three feet of water in the downstairs of the house. When Katy and Savannah returned to their house the next day, where five feet of water had inundated their home, “Nothing was preserved,” says Stevens. “We didn’t really have much anyway; we were pret- ty poor before the flood. Once this happened, there was nothing. No savings account. We didn’t even have adequate insurance on the house.” Stevens says her family was at the mercy of FEMA, and her father’s claim wasn’t settled until over five years later in 2013. “In the meantime, we just had to make it work,” says Stevens. At first they stayed with family friends, but Stevens quickly camp 18 tool swap & show 7 in case you missed it 9 made in vernonia reopens 9 bear creek run results realized that keeping the family to- gether wasn’t going to be best. “I saw how overwhelmed and frus- trated my father was and how little he had to make things work,” says Stevens. “And I was a stubborn and ambitious teenager. We were butting heads and I wasn’t doing very well in school or able to focus on anything.” Stevens headed off on her own, staying with her own friends, couch surfing and just sleeping where ever she could. “And then I was invited to stay with the Mill- ers,” says Stevens. Stevens was encouraged to move in with her friend Souvan- ny Miller and her parents, Verno- nia Grade School Principal Aaron Miller and Betsy Miller, a school district employee at the time, along with son Jackson. “We first met Katy when she was in eighth grade when Sou- vanny first started school in Ver- nonia and they became friends,” explains Betsy Miller. “After the flood all she had was a pair of wet shoes, the clothes on her back, and her cell phone. That was all she owned, everything else had been ruined.” Stevens lived with the Miller family off and on during her high school years, with a short break when she moved back in with her father and sister in a trail- er provided by FEMA. Life with the Millers was pretty different for Stevens. “After the flood my father was really busy and wasn’t around a lot and wasn’t able to provide a lot of guidance or direction,” says Stevens. “I stopped caring about school and just did what I had to pass my classes. It wasn’t something I was continued on page 3 Frontier Upgrades Vernonia System Customers of Frontier Communications ser- vice in Vernonia have had complaints about their ser- vice and the inability of new customers to receive high speed internet at their home or business. According to Jeanne Danielson, General Manager of Frontier Communications in Washington County, those issues no longer exist. “Although Frontier’s network had some limi- tations previously, those have been resolved and we are currently adding customers,” said Danielson in response to a recent request for information concern- ing Frontier’s local service. “Customers can call (503) 439-0099 to order High-Speed Internet.” Danielson also addressed questions about nu- merous Frontier crews working along the highways and roads in the area. Danielson said Frontier Com- munications is currently upgrading its network to bring broadband availability to additional residences and businesses in the Vernonia area. “Frontier is improving its fiber optic backbone in the Vernonia area, and updating equipment in the central office and to remote sites, to bring High-Speed Internet to customers who were previously limited to phone access only. Customers will be able to get DSL with their traditional copper cable service,” said Dan- ielson. According to Danielson the upgrade utilizes funding from the Federal Communication Commis- sion’s Connect America Fund (CAF) to expand broad- band to unserved and underserved areas of rural Amer- ica. The total investment for this project, including CAF funding, is more than $2.1 million. Broadband speeds will be based off the distance to the remote, with downloads up to 24Mbps available to those clos- est to the central office. Businesses will have access to download speeds up to 40Mbps. Danielson says the first sites are scheduled to be done in September, with those closest to Frontier’s central office (located on Bridge Street), being acti- vated first. This phase of the project, which will give access to more than 500 customers, will be completed by the end of December 2016. Customers will be mi- grated to the new network without impact. A request for additional funding for Phase 2 has been submitted and, if granted, will bring broadband access to approx- imately 400 additional sites by the end of 2017. Community Action Team: The First 50 Years Part 4: Strengthening Housing Stability in Columbia County By Leanne Murray 5 free Always nimble and re- sponsive to the community’s needs, Community Action Team’s (CAT) programs get to the heart of supporting res- idents in meaningful and per- sonal ways. Because they’ve been providing Energy/Utili- ty Assistance for almost forty years, it is one of the pro- grams for which CAT is best known. True to their mission to connect people with re- sources to become self-suf- ficient, CAT administers fed- eral, state and local funds to the low-income households in Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook Counties. Households may qualify to receive assistance in paying their power, natural gas, and water bills when unanticipated financial burdens make paying those bills difficult. CAT also offers other energy-related services including energy education classes, budgeting, instruction in reading utility bills, identifying ways to CAT’s Blue Heron Hollow in Vernonia provides affordable housing in Columbia County where there is currently a housing crisis. reduce utility expenses, and working with a utility County for nine years, her account in her name. The provider. name was not on the util- amount they expected her to Earlier this year CAT ity bill. When her husband pay was the equivalent of ap- helped a young, newly-wid- passed away, the utility com- proximately three times the owed woman to keep the pany was going to turn off amount of her monthly rent. power on in her home. Even the power unless she paid to Her husband’s death left her though she had lived in her establish a completely new rental home in Columbia continued on page 11
